Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to methods and systems for analyzing, collecting, and providing data for business services. In particular, aspects of the present invention relate to methods and systems for aiding business in providing guest services, collecting information for guest services, and tracking guest information directly from guests who are using computer-aided devices.
Background
A typical hotel has a large number and/or variety of guests staying with the hotel during a calendar year. The hotel typically attempts to cater to a majority of hotel guests by providing a wide variety of dining options, hotel amenities, and hotel services to encourage the hotel guests to spend time and/or money in the hotel. If the hotel guests dine outside of the hotel, the hotel may have difficulty tracking hotel guests' preferences and the hotel loses the revenue from the hotel guest dining in the hotel. Thus, there is a need in the art for methods and systems for capturing data relating to hotel guests, performing trend analysis and data mining based upon the captured data, and generating reports based upon the analysis. A similar situation occurs with restaurants, where individuals are interested in specific types of ordering options and specials. Such systems and methods would enable the hotel or restaurant to provide targeted services and/or advertising to a guest staying in a hotel to increase the amount of time and/or money the hotel guest spends in the hotel.
Additionally, guests want a full-service hotel that caters to their preferences, and therefore it is essential to capture information about and offer the best services in the area specific to a guest's needs. Hotel guests may ask hotel staff, such as concierges, for recommendations for dining options and/or places of interest around the hotel. Hotel staff frequently changes jobs and/or positions within the hotel. Thus, the hotel as an organization may not be able to retain the information available to any specific hotel staff, e.g., what restaurants are popular and/or what events guests enjoy attending. Therefore, there is a further need in the art to capture the knowledge of the hotel staff about the hotel guests' preferences and correlate the hotel staff's knowledge with the captured data when generating the reports and recommendations.